All of America's "Big Four" wireless carriers will now have access to the iPhone

Late last month, T-Mobile USA tried to throw some water on rumors that it would finally be gaining access to Apple iPhone. The company's COO, Jim Alling, stated, "Make no mistake about it: We would love to carry the iPhone. However, we want the economies to be right for us."

Well, something must have happened in the past few weeks to make the financial details gel for T-Mobile USA and Apple. Today, T-Mobile USA parent company Deutsche Telekom announced in a press release that the wireless carrier will become the last of America's "Big Four" to gain access to Apple devices. In the long press release, there was just this one sentence:

In addition, T-Mobile USA has entered into an agreement with Apple to bring products to market together in 2013.

We can only assume that the family of iPhone smartphones and cellular iPad/iPad mini tablets will be making their way to T-Mobile USA's network.

Jesus, the haters never learn do they? You were out in fall force claiming T-Mo would never "cave in" to Apple, and now that you see T-Mo selling iPhones you insist that this is some ju-jitsu on T-Mo's part, whereby Apple give them great prices.

The nature of the deal is no secret. T-Mo is doing this by going off-contract. They WILL NOT bundle the cost of the phone (as far as I can tell, ALL phones, not just iPhone) with your contract. Instead, like the rest of the world, you will buy (or bring) a phone, and SEPARATELY you will buy a phone contract.

This is, IMHO, a clear win for Apple. They now get a US market which can serve both people who are happy with the subsidized contract scheme and people who want the price of their phone to be decouple from their contract.It's not as clear if it's a win for T-Mo. Carriers get fat off the excess money they take in once your contract is over, and they will be giving up that cash. In the world of iPhones, that cash isn't much because (at least so far) most iPhone users have been pretty aggressive about updating as soon as their contracts hit two years; but for other phones updating has been less aggressive.Personally I'd love to see T-Mo successful in this, so that all carriers adopt the model, but who knows?